Taking the Road Not Taken

THE BUILDUP

So here I am in my late fifties; I've been lucky, fortunate, or whatever, to have traveled a lot. My acquaintances consider me to be well traveled, even worldly maybe, due to some splashy social media posts and assorted adventures over the years.

I'd become addicted to travel and dreamed of traveling fulltime. I'm not super-successful financially, I became a collector of experiences rather than the customary things like a home, boat, 401k, etc. I spent time scanning blogs about remote workers and digital nomads, it seemed like the ideal scenario to me.

The universe kind of pushed me into it, with excessive force, I might add. For the few years preceding 2020 I'd been living in a crappy, ghetto apartment, very conveniently located right next to a crappy, miserable job that I felt like I was trapped in. Eventually I recklessly quit and was unemployed for 5 months looking for a job that I didn't hate so much, I barely got by. I realized I only made it that long because of my incredibly low living expenses. I preferred to spend my money on trips and vacations, not things.

THE PUSH

My patience paid off, I scored a position in my industry that I actually thought I'd actually like. Shortly after I started, I was the victim of a serious hit and run. I was was crossing the road in front of my apartment, just a step away from the other side, and I was hit by a speeding pick-up truck. my right tibia was shattered and caused me to be in a wheelchair for several months.

That is not the story though, it is the segue into the story. I live in a big city. Getting to work and back in a wheelchair was going to be a pain, not impossible, but a real hassle. I got the surgeon to write a statement advising me to work from home if at all possible. My new employer reluctantly agreed.

Although the stage was set for me to be a remote worker, it was only temporary. The agreement was that as soon as possible I would return to the office. It felt like I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get permission to work from home. The HR dept. wanted iron-clad documentation so others would not want to do the same thing frivolously. Looking back, it's kind of funny. COVID is not funny, but the timing was amusing. Shortly after I jumped through all the hoops to get permission to work from home, the company decided it would need to close the office due to the pandemic. Now everyone was required to work from home.

THE ACTUAL PLANNING

Do you ever go window shopping? My ex hated the idea. She was, is, a brutal realist. "Why waste time looking at something you KNOW you're not going to buy?" she would ask. I kinda feel sorry for her. I'm not one of those kooks that believe I can attract something into my life. But dreams are how great ideas are birthed. It starts with a dream, anyway.

That said, I started "window-shopping" trips, all different kinds. One of my favorites was trying to plan a feasible round-the-world trip. After much trial and error it seemed pretty much unrealistic. The best I could come up with was a trip about 18 days long and it would cost about 12 to 15 thousand dollars..... nnnnnnope.

I came to the conclusion that slow-travel is the way to go. Instead of a round-the-world trip, I set my sights on an all-over-the-world trip. Just move around the planet, living in different countries for a few weeks or a few months at a time, anyplace that my passport would allow. The popular term for this is Digital Nomad. I don't really fit this persona though. The typical Digital Monad is often self-employed or some kind of creative. I just grind out a day's work everyday in the transportation/logistics industry. I'm more in the category of Remote Worker, not that everything needs to be labeled.

Planning is half the fun and most of the work but it's a labor that I enjoy, a lot. I spent hours and hours looking at the countries that I wanted to go to, apartment prices, general cost of living, one-way flight prices. I watched hours of you-tube videos created by douchebag narcissists. After a very short time I understood that it did not matter where I WANTED to go. I had to adjust my attitude and look at this from a perspective of where COULD I go. Many places I'd dreamed of had stopped allowing travelers to enter due to the pandemic.

I chose Serbia after much research, mainly because of price. The apartments in Belgrade are very reasonable, it was the cheapest one-way flight to anywhere in Europe from Dallas, And from there, it was very cheap to fly to other countries. And... the big one, they were still allowing tourists without restrictions.

THE LEAP

So, how to do it? Right away I decided to really commit to this, make it a leap of faith. I did have faith that I could do this, no looking back, no safety net. Go big or go home. I decided to burn the bridge, so to speak. To my neighbors at the ghetto apartment complex I gave my furniture and appliances, I gave my new, really nice Samsung TV to my housekeeper (I needed one while I was in a wheelchair.) Everything else went to the Salvation Army. It was quite an experience to watch the truck pull away. All of my worldly possessions now fit into a set of luggage.

It was scary and liberating at the same time. It was like a Great Unburdening. All my stuff... gone, poof. I dare you to try it.

I departed July 2nd my own private independence day. A one way flight to Belgrade with no return flight scheduled. Since then I've been to Albania, back to the states for a couple months visit, and now I'm in Istanbul. Next will be Georgia (if the civil unrest doesn't get bad.)

This is my first post. I plan to chronicle my activities here. I'll let you know about my successes and failures, I'll share what I learn, probably via the mistakes I make, and I'll pass along the wonderful discoveries and surprises I find. Cheers!